For many musicians and composers birdsong is the ultimate musical composition - yet is it music: Birds use variations of rhythm, relationships of musical pitch, and combinations of notes that resembles music, but without fixed musical intervals, as on a scale, there is a chaotic randomness to their singing.Continue reading Birds in Music

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Carefully parting Willow, Bramble and bronzed Bracken fronds that rustled and crackled in the winter frost I could see my secret lake ... well large pond really - an old disused Flight Pond ... a few Mallard quacked and splashed noisily; a couple of Tufted Duck circled warily in the middle while on the far bank a pair of Teal rested, blending well with the pondside rushes ... a Coot called from somewhere in the reeds - well hidden - shatteringly loud ...

‘Peep Peep’ - a black and white bird rounds a bend in the river and alights, bobbing and winking, on a rock midstream - a Water Ousel, Colley or Dipper - typically a bird of fast tumbling mountain and moorland streams and lakes. But I knew it best on a little lowland brook - the Cam - meandering through a pastoral landscape near Bath ...

I am currently reading 'Magpie Murders' by Anthony Horowitz and was reminded of the childhood rhyme ..... one for sorrow two for joy .... and so on. I wonder what it would be for 200! For this was the number of Magpie I counted, before it was too dark to see, coming to roost in willow scrub one winters evening near my home.

Suddenly! Some chance movement has been noticed by the nearest Lapwing, and away they go at once as if with the same wings, sweeping overhead, then to the right, then to the left, and then back again ...

A Song for May - This post is a mashup of anecdote, memoir, and selected prose from Richard Jefferies and W H Hudson, illustrated with seasonal atmospheric soundscapes. Join me for a day, if you will in a celebration of nature’s symphony ...

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Welcome to my Blog – a celebration of birds – in art and anecdote, poetry and prose – part memoir, part anthology, part nature writing, with biographical snippets about favourite artists. Follow me as I ramble through the year writing about the birds I see – share your own encounters with birds, or tell me about your patch … More

East Anglia is one of the best birding areas in the UK; in particular its coast, which is for the large part not greatly built-up and has a fantastic mix of interesting and rare habitats like dunes, reedbeds, lagoons, estuaries, sandy cliffs, shingle and sand spits, saltmarsh, grazing marsh, woodland, heath and broads. I was […]

Hot Summer Badgers. Unusually for us, this is our first visit of the year to the badger sett. Something happened here (and at the other badger setts locally); an indeterminate transgression from outside; a violation, perhaps a crime, that can’t be pinned down or proven – but that meant for a while, there were few […]

2018 / 50 Overcast with sunny bright spells. Cloud building from the west. Warm 17°C 07:30 – 09:45 There is less Willow Warbler song this morning, and apparently less bird activity on the east facing edge at the top. 15 minutes surveying this front indicate what was further evidenced later – an explosion of Coal […]

Simon Coleman Richard Jefferies wrote two great essays on the theme of Trafalgar Square in London. One of them, ‘Sunlight in a London Square’, has already been featured on this website. The following quote is from ‘The Lions in Trafalgar Square’ which explores the relationship between human life and the great unknown, with Landseer’s huge […]

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